


Rocky Road

by Bagxboy



Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Mentions of alcohol, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-04
Updated: 2015-05-22
Packaged: 2018-03-05 09:15:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3114431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bagxboy/pseuds/Bagxboy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A bunch of tiny DeanxRory ficlets for my fellow Narco shippers. Individual summaries are inside.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Happy New Years

**Author's Note:**

> Rory and Dean bring in the new year. Set sometime during season 1.

Rory finds Dean outside on the porch seven minutes until midnight. He’s sitting on the porch swing, wrapped in his coat and scarf. The loudness of the New Years Eve party mutes a bit when the door closes behind her.

"Is something wrong?" she asks her boyfriend-wow, that word is still kinda weird to use-breath puffing out into the cold air like smoke. When Rory was a kid, and had just read Eragon, she chased around Lane in the snow while pretending to be a dragon.

She thinks that Dean would probably let her tackle him into the snow bank, probably play along with her dragon game.

"No, just…small house with a lot of people in it" he answers eventually with a sheepish smile. 

"Yeah. It is" Rory laughed, shoving her cold hands into her pockets. Dean moved over and tapped the seat next to him, she sat down.

This was how she liked her house best, packed full with her friends and family all having a good time. It was full of warmth and love. She supposed, though, these people were still relative strangers to Dean. Just another crowd and he had never been one for crowds.

Almost like a wild animal that got spooked by loud noises. But he wasn’t wild, he was domestic. Not a wolf but a big floppy dog that jumps on you when you get home.

The thought makes Rory giggle out loud, and Dean snorts, confused.

"What?" he asks and she laughs harder. "What?" he repeats, tone more amused now.

She shakes her he head as the laughter bubbles down. “I’ll tell you later”

She shivers again, cold in her light coat. Dean unravels his scarf and wraps it around her. “Better?” he asks and Rory nods. Much better.

Silence settles between them, light and comfortable. Rory liked the noise of her mom, of her friends, but she enjoyed her quiet moments too. With a good book, with Dean.

He stares at her, like he tends to do, eyes soft and adoring. She flushes and adverts her gaze. She pretends examine the snow, which is actually very pretty in the light of the street lamp.

Someone inside announces that they have three minutes left.

"So, what’s your New Years wish?" Dean breaks the silence and Rory chances a look. He’s still staring but not so intensely.

"Get a decent grade in my AP History class, finally get on the ‘Franklin’. Meet the president, rule the world" she shrugs "The usual, you?"

He laughs, warm and deep “uh, I don’t really have one.” he admits finally.

Rory gasps in fake horror “Well you better come up with one quick!”

Dean takes a moment to think, brows furrowed in his pensive, worried look. Sometimes Rory was tempted to physically smooth out the worry lines, force his shoulders to relax. He glances inside and sees that the countdown has started, forty nine seconds.

"I think I have an idea" he says, eventually, and before Rory can ask what he’s doing he cups her face in both hands and presses their lips together. Slow and soft, no surging forward and gasping for breath this time. Deliberate, not desperate. Rory’s eyes flutter closed seconds after his.

He doesn’t pull away, his thumb traces the outline of her cheek as if memorizing the shape. His other hand moves to push her hair behind her ear. She hears someone who sounds an awful lot like her mother shout ‘Happy New Years’ inside and he finally pulls away.

Rory’s still a little confused but Dean just grins, still cradling her cheeks “Happy New Years.”


	2. The Party's (Not) Over

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> loverlylight suggested ‘Rory talking to Dean when he said he didn’t belong there anymore and the two staying together!’
> 
> So here it is ‘The Party’s Over’ with a happy ending.

"I don’t belong here anymore, do I?" Dean asks, eyes wet with tears. 

Rory sways slightly on her feet, meeting his gaze with a guilty expression “Dean…” she whispers, trying to think of something to say. Her mind is swimming under drink but she knows that look, knows that look.

The same look he gave her when she couldn’t say ‘I love you’, the same look he gave her when she fell for Jess. The look that says that this is the end.

Dean just nods at her silence and turns on his boots to leave but she doesn’t want it to end and she takes a shaky step forward, reaching for him.

"Dean, stop."

He freezes, rigid, not even turning around. “Why?” and it isn’t bitter or wry, just sad.

"Because…because I love you" She takes another step forward, he turns around "you idiot!" she stumbles, falls, and he catches her.

For a moment she fears that he’s still going to leave. He just didn’t want her to fall on her face. But he’s still holding her and when she looks up his expression has softened.

"I’ll never be able to fit into…this." Dean gestures to the house "I don’t belong here, no matter how much I want to—"

"—I don’t either" Rory cuts him off. He still has his arms steadying her and she wants it to stay that way, for a very long time.

"I love my grandparents, and this party was fun, but this isn’t who I am." she tugs the tiara out of her hair and holds it, she doesn’t have the heart to throw away a gift from her grandmother but suddenly it feels ridiculous to wear. "No matter how rich my family is, or how many friends I make at Yale;this isn’t where I belong either."

Dean doesn’t interrupt, just listens. His expression is pensive but not upset, the tears are gone.

"I belong in Stars Hollow, in my tiny house with my mom eating old take out. I belong in the bookstore that kind of smells like mold, and Taylor’s ridiculous ice cream shop—I belong with you" she continues, unwavering. The words spilling from her mouth in the flood Dean always seemed to trigger.

His lips twitch into a smile and then they’re against hers, his hand is in her hair absolutely ruining Emily’s work and she loves every second.

When they pull apart she smiles, tucking the tiara into her purse “Let’s go to Luke’s, i’m starving”


	3. That Damn Don(na) Reed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean cooks Rory dinner. Season 1.
> 
> Despite being a mega Dean Girl, Dean really upsets me in the episode 'Damn That Donna Reed' so this is kind of a redemption fic for that ahaha.

It had been a few weeks since 'Donna Reed night' and Dean found himself thinking more and more about what happened. (Or perhaps the amount of Jane Austen Rory had him reading was responsible) Did he really want that? Want Rory to be like that?

The outfit was cute and the dinner outstanding, really, but the answer was a resounding “no way.” Sure, he still liked the idea of someone cooking for him-who wouldn’t?-but to imagine stuffing _Rory_ in that role…well, the Gilmores had been right to look at him as if he were insane. Rory was special; smart, nice, and gorgeous to boot. Not the best in the athletic department but, frankly, neither was he. He still winced when thinking of the time the bat slipped out of his hand during softball and hit another player.

So, no, he didn’t want a girl like Donna Reed and he didn’t want Rory to be like that. She was perfect, as is.

Which brought him to the next question; how to prove that to her and make up for acting like a complete ass? There seemed, to him, to be only one fitting penance. If Dean knew Rory, and he was pretty sure he did, all would be forgiven if there was food involved. And given what happened on Donna Reed night, he owed her anyway.

There was only one problem and that was, of course, Dean had no _clue_ how to cook. He had watched his mother as a kid, always found it fascinating, and she had let him help with small things. When they moved to Stars Hollow, though, she had stopped cooking every night.  He didn’t mind it much, though he missed spending that time with her.

He wished he spent a little more attention to what she was doing rather than what she had him doing, because now his cooking knowledge was basically chopping vegetables and boiling water. Great. He could make Rory tasteless vegetable soup. No, he could do better than that. How hard could cooking be? Just follow a recipe. Right.

Dean had heard at one point (maybe from his mom, maybe from television) that pasta was the easiest type of dish to make; which was great because Rory loved pasta, and because he already knew how to boil water. He was pretty sure that was required for pasta.

He borrowed the recipe from one of his mom’s cookbooks, writing it down on a piece of paper because someone would probably notice the entire cookbook missing since they sat out on the counter. It was a simple recipe, he could cook the ingredients in stages because it all went in the oven later so it didn’t matter if something got cold. And the recipe was detailed enough to take him through step by step. He could do this.

He bought the ingredients after work, this step was especially easy since he worked at a market, and found he had to cut some corners. Fresh parmesan cheese was not something you found in Stars Hollow, and neither were parsley leaves. They did have powdered Parmesan and dried up parsley leaves in a bottle and he figured those would have to do. He decided to buy the spices there as well since he knew that the Gilmore kitchen was pretty barren.

Rory had made him salad and dessert as well, and he was trying to match. Rory didn’t like salad so he figured he could get away with skipping that part. (Or maybe he should make pizza rolls or something like that instead?) For dessert he found a package of instant pudding mix, simple enough. And guess what it required? Boiling water. Dean was starting to feel better about his limited cooking skills, being able to boil water was important.

From there he went to the Gilmore home. Rory was at an after school meeting for the Franklin and Lorelai was working late at the inn for a wedding so the house was empty. He let himself in using the key they kept under their turtle, he only had a couple hours before Rory came home so he got started right away.

It went well at first, he measured out all the ingredients so he would have to do it later (which he thought was pretty clever) and put on a pot of water to boil for the pasta. Then, he made the mistake of cutting up the chicken while he waited.

The chicken was cold and slippery and unlike the vegetables he’d chopped the meat required a sawing motion. His fingers slipped and the knife slid across the back of his hand. Dean let out a hiss of pain and dropped the knife. Red oozed from the wound and dripped on the floor and he felt woozy. The sight of blood always did that.

When he regained his sense, Dean went into the bathroom to wash out and bandage the wound. Unfortunately, the Gilmores seemed to be out of band aids that _didn’t_ have Hello Kitty on them. Better than nothing, though, so Dean put a couple on (the cut was too big for one, really it was too big for two but no way was he going to use _three_ Hello Kitty band aids. Two was his limit. At least he was using the sawing motion, a chop would have been much worse. He felt sick at the thought of chopping his hand.

A hissing sound emitted from the kitchen. Crap, he’d left the water on. He raced into the kitchen to find the water bubbling over and hissing on the hot stove top.  Quickly turning the water off, Dean groaned. He couldn’t believe he failed at water. 

Ok, ok, this was fine. There was still enough boiling water in the pot to cook the pasta. Dean dumped it in, stirred a couple times so it wouldn’t stick, then moped up the spilled water (with a towel, of course, the Gilmores didn’t own a mop) and, reluctantly, went back to cutting up the chicken. He managed to complete the task without further bodily harm.

Next, he had to cook the chicken in a frying pan. The recipe didn’t call for oil but Dean knew enough that chicken would stick without oil. He felt rather proud of his logic until he added the chicken to the now hot pan of oil and it popped and crackled. He managed to jump back before any of the oil got on him but he couldn’t get close enough to turn the heat off.

Scolding himself for not following the recipe, Dean used a towel to grab the pan off the stove. Then he turned the heat down and drained what he could of the oil into the sink. He glanced at the clock, ok, he could still do this, had time.

The chicken went back on the stove and everything went smoothly from then on-he had a little hiccup in that the powdered cheese didn’t make the sauce thick enough but cooking it longer fixed that easily-and he finally had the dish in the oven about an hour before Rory was supposed to be home.

He still had about a half an hour before he had to turn the temperature down so he decided to clean up a bit in the meantime. He had made a mess out of the kitchen and he was sure Rory and Lorelai would appreciate if he tidied up the house a little. He stayed out of Rory’s room, of course, and focused on the kitchen and living room.

Dean was putting the various catalogs strewn about in an empty drawer (which he was fairly certain was _supposed_ to be full of catalogs) when he smelled it. Smoke. He glanced at the clock and realized that almost the full hour had passed and he never turned down the heat. He stood up so fast he hit his head on the drawer, he hissed again and slammed the drawer shut more forcefully than necessary.

The smoke alarm started going off on his way to the kitchen and the beeping was insanely loud, so Dean stopped to turn it off. He had to pull it off and take the batteries out but finally the beeping stopped. That’s when he remembered, kitchen, smoke, dinner burning. He cursed under his breath and bounded into the kitchen.

The smoke in the air caused him to cough as he turned off the oven and pulled the blackened dish out of the oven. He ran his non cut hand through his hair, feeling frazzled. And that was the moment Rory decided to come home. She stared at him and he stared back, trying to come up with an explanation.

“I, uh, tried to cook” He said weakly and Rory peaked at the unrecognizable pasta. She burst into laughter and Dean could feel his cheeks flood with embarrassment.

“Believe it or not this is better than when my mom tries to cook” Rory assured with a playful smile and he couldn’t help but laugh along.

“It’s probably still inedible, though” he mumbled awkwardly.

“And you’re lucky it’s not! It’s egg roll night at Al’s” Rory said, grabbing a takeout menu “I can’t believe you almost deprived me of egg rolls”

Dean blinked, confused, then slowly smiled “Sorry, my bad.”

Rory shrugged “You can make it up to me via Pippi Long Stocking. And I want fried rice” she handed the menu and he nodded.

“Aye, aye, captain.” He grinned as he dialed the number. Having someone cook for you was good and cooking for someone else was nice, but all said and done Dean would much rather have takeout and a movie. He glanced at Rory in the living room, looking for the movie, while he listened to the phone ring. --With the right company, that is.


	4. Little Gnome Boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Rory was little she used to leave peanut butter sandwiches for the gnomes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> inspired by Lorelai's story in the ep Rory's Birthday Parties. Shameless fluff about chubby narco babies

For her sixth birthday her mom had bought her a big book about mythology. Rory had already read a good portion of it in the bookstore, her mom joked that she had to buy it or the owner would have gotten mad.

It wasn’t true, of course, the man who ran the bookstore in Stars Hollow adored Rory and would let her sit and read for hours. Rory preferred to read at home, though, where she could lay in her bed and eat pizza rolls.

About a week later she was playing with the neighbors’ cat, Cinnamon, when she spotted an old stump with mushrooms around it. A real live fairy ring. She scrambled to get her book to confirm it, the picture looked just like the stump outside. The book said that a fairy or gnome might appear if you leave it an offering.

She raided the sparse kitchen for something to leave for the fae. Did gnomes like slim jims? No, of course not, it wouldn’t eat meat. Mostly the Gilmore stock consisted of bread and peanut butter because that was Rory’s favorite. She decided fairies probably liked peanut butter sandwiches too. She made one, sloppy and gooey with unpracticed hands, put it on a paper plate, and sat it on the stump.

Like most six year olds, Rory didn’t have much in the way of an attention span and she quickly grew bored of watching the stump. Especially since her book on mythology was waiting inside to be read. She decided that the gnomes probably wouldn’t show up with her watching, anyway, and went inside.

~*~

Running away had seemed like a good idea at the time. With his parents arguing loudly in his aunt’s kitchen and a little sibling on the way. Dean’s family had come to connecticut because aunt Rose insisted on a visit before his mom got too big to travel. Dean didn’t understand what that had to do with anything, his dad had a big belly and he traveled just fine.

It was really what his aunt had said, though, that scared him. “You’re going to be a big brother now, Dean. And that’s a big responsibility.”

But he wasn’t ready to be a big brother, especially when the whole process was making his parents act so crazy. So he decided to leave. 

Dean wandered around the town, Stars Grove or something, for hours without really getting anywhere. A result to be blamed on short legs and the confusing layout of the town. When it was way past dinner time, the boy was starting to regret his decision.

Until he happened upon a stump, a stump with a sandwich on it. His mom had always taught him stealing was wrong, but was it stealing if it didn’t belong to anyone? It didn’t look it belonged to anyone, and he was really hungry.

Using his six year old logic that if no one was around, it didn’t belong to anyone, Dean grabbed the sandwich and took a bite.

“Hey!” a small voice called out to him and Dean looked up. A girl with brown hair was running out of the house, tiny cheeks red with outrage “That was for the fairies!”

Dean immediately dropped the sandwich, wide eyed, and took off running in the other direction without looking back.

He kept running until he had to stop for breath, somehow he ended up in front of a grocery store. He had been wrong about the sandwich, that girl left it purposefully for someone else. Fairies, his mind supplied. Oh no, what if he had ruined her chance to see one? The thought made him feel awful.

Glancing inside the window of the store, Doose’s market, he could see a jar of peanut butter on the shelf. He had a few dollars in his pocket, saved up from raking leaves, if the store had bread too he could just bring the girl a new sandwich and it would all be ok.

~*~

Rory felt guilty afterwards, for running the strange boy off. The sandwich was meant for the gnomes, not some dirty boy but he seemed so scared. She didn’t like to feel scary.

She resolved that if the boy came back, she would apologize to him. She picked the half eaten sandwich up and tossed it out–no fairy would want that as an offering–before waiting by the stump to see if the boy would come back.

It took forever, in Rory’s opinion, and she was just about ready to call it quits when the boy showed up, carrying a jar of peanut butter and loaf of bread, and out of breath.

“I’m sorry I took your sandwich” he huffed out, shoving the things toward her.

Rory took them awkwardly in her chubby arms, blinking in surprise “Oh, thanks. I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

The boy shook his head “I shouldn’t have taken it. I know stealing is bad, I was just hungry.”

“Why didn’t you just go home, then?” Rory asked, confused. Sometimes their pantry was pretty bare but her mom never let her go hungry.

The boy looked sheepishly down at his feet. “I ran away.”

“Well, why did you do that?” she asked incredulously, why would anyone run away?

“Because my mom is having a baby and i’m not ready to be a big brother yet and everyone is being loud and upset and it’s scary.” He answered, tears welling up, and Rory suddenly felt bad again.

“Being a big brother isn’t so bad” Rory reassured “You should go home, everything will be fine.”

“But what if I mess up, my aunt said it’s a lot of responsibility.” the boy mumbled, dragging his toe through the dirt.

“Well, I think you’re plenty responsible” Rory declared confidently “You brought me stuff to make a new sandwich when you could’ve just run away.”

“But I took it in the first place” the boy pointed out “I messed up.”

“Everyone messes up” Rory said with a roll of her eyes, because it was so obvious “But not everyone fixes it.

The boy looks at her for a long moment, silent. Then his eyes drop again. “Can I use your phone? I need to ask my dad to pick me up”

“Sure” Rory said, smiling proudly that she was able to change his mind.

~*~

“Come on man, you going to play or what?” A boy from Dean’s new class, Kyle, called out. Football in hand. A few other guys were gathered around as well but Dean’s eyes weren’t on them.

On a bench, in the shade of the tree, a brown haired girl sat reading a book. She was beautiful, gorgeous really, with a heart shaped face and piercing blue eyes. But that’s not why he stared, because more than beautiful she was familiar. Yet he couldn’t quite place it.

“Not today” Dean answered distractedly as a bubbly dark haired girl in a Led Zepplin Tee started talking to the brunette. The brunette smiled and he sucked in a deep breath.

Whoever she was, he was done for.


End file.
